obama. because he has 237 electoral votes that he is likely to get, he has more pathways to 270. in fact, his easiest route would be to start with florida then he would need just one of the remaining eight battleground states to get to 270. mitt romney has a tougher path. for mitt romney, if he were to win florida, and he were also to win ohio, north carolina and virginia, the four big prizes of the evening, that would still only get him to 266. then he would have to win one of the remaining five battleground states to get to that number, 270. >> pelley: john, thank you. essentially the states are given electoral votes as a function of their population. the larger the population of the state, the more electoral votes they have. anthony mason is watching our exit polling today. anthony has been looking at all of the information coming in from the various exit polls. we've been talking to voters, anthony as they left the polls in every state all day long. what are you hearing so far? >> well,